


Missed Messages

by bluestrawberryiii



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: M/M, anyways uh have some ryugana., but hey life is strange amirite ladies, its 1k more words of carfucker pining than i ever expected i would write, lemme tell you: bad idea, this was written and posted almost entirely on my phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 09:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10738530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestrawberryiii/pseuds/bluestrawberryiii
Summary: Ryuji stays up late thinking about Morgana.(Written as a loose companion to "Working at the Carwash")





	Missed Messages

**Author's Note:**

> i may not have played past the first couple weeks of the game but that won't stop me. unlike SOME PEOPLE in this tag (*COUGH* wolfwinds123 *COUGH*), this is a 100% genuine labor of love.

The clock by Ryuji’s bed read 12:32. Three hours since he'd gone to bed. Three hours of not being able to sleep.

He rolled over again. “Life is a Highway” was playing on repeat in his head, and it was bringing back...memories.

He picked up his phone and called Ann. She was sometimes still up doing homework. After a couple rings, the phone brought him to voicemail, but he couldn't think of anything to say, so he just hung up.

What was Morgana doing right now, he wondered. Probably sleeping in Akira’s room, or looking out the window. Maybe thinking of Ryuji?

Yeah that was about as stupid as it sounded. Why would Morgana be thinking of him? All they ever did was argue anyways. Ryuji groaned and rolled over again, shoving his face in the pillow. He really should try being nicer to Morgana, but he was scared of changing anything. If Morgana noticed Ryuji being nicer to him, he might get suspicious, and he might start asking around (would Ann spill Ryuji’s secret crush? He hoped not), and if Morgana found out that Ryuji was in love with his giant car form, well. At that point it might just be easier to die.

He called Ann again. _Please, please, please pick up._ He didn't want to deal with this alone. He needed to talk to someone.

Voicemail again.

“Ann, _why_.” He scrubbed his palms over his face. Why did he have to be left alone like this? He called a couple more times, more for the distraction of doing something than any hope of getting an answer.

It would be great, he thought, if he could just stop? He'd been missing sleep for a good week over this stupid crush. What would happen if he told Morgana? One way or the other, it would end his suffering.

_It would probably be after a mission. They would exit the palace. Morgana would be in car form to drive them down the tracks in mementos. Ryuji would get to him first, while the others hung back and talked (maybe Ann could distract them)._

_“Morgana,” he would say (confidently, suavely). “I've got somethin’ I gotta say to you.”_

_“What?” Morgana would ask, with the annoyed bite to his words that he reserved special for Ryuji._

_And then he would suck in a breath. Even in his imagination, it was hard to get the words out. “Morgana, I might… have a thing for you.”_

_“A thing?”_

_“Yeah like… Like a thing thing.”_

_“Can you be more specific?”_

_“Like a crush.”_

Oh god. A wave of embarrassment shocked him out of the imaginary scene. That would never go over well, would it? Morgana would probably think it was a joke. Or, even worse, he would believe Ryuji. What if he was creeped out?

Ryuji went for his phone again. Once again, he went to voicemail, but this time he actually left a message. “Ann? How do you think Morgana would react if he did find out? If I told him. I would ask Akira, since he lives with the guy, but you're the only one that knows about all…” He waved his free hand around uselessly. “All this.” He sighed. “I dunno. Get back to me when you can.” His phone made a soft click sound as he ended the call, the sound echoing around his otherwise silent room.

Everything was still, save for the car headlights that occasionally eased past his windows. He glanced back over at the clock. 1:46. He had a test tomorrow, and yet he'd wasted over an hour of potential sleep fantasizing about asking out a car.

What if Morgana felt the same way though?

_“I have a crush on you,” Ryuji would say, eyes cast to the ground, face too red to show._

_“Oh, Ryuji,” Car Morgana would gush. “You big idiot; I've been waiting for you to say that since the day we first met!” He would roll towards Ryuji and Ryuji would wrap his arms around Morgana’s front, wrapping his fingers in the grill._

No, no that was stupid. Morgana would never, not in a hundred thousand years, say that. It would probably go more like…

_“Ugh fine.”_

_He would look up. “What?”_

_“God, you're red as a tomato!” Morgana would laugh, his engine rumbling. It wouldn't be quite as derisive as the other times Morgana laughed at him. “I knew you were an amateur at shadow thievery, but I should've guessed you were bad at confessing too!”_

_“Is that a no, then?”_

_Morgana would roll his eyes. “Didn't you hear me, stupid? I said ‘fine.’ I'll let you take me on a date. Don't mess it up.”_

What would Morgana want to do on a date? Maybe get a car wash? No, Ryuji decided. That would be way too awkward.

What about a drive-in theater? He always saw those in old American movies; did Japan even have them? His hand strayed back to his phone, and soon he had Ann’s voicemail message playing up against his ear again:

“You've reached Ann’s cell phone. Please leave a message after the beep, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.” _Beeeep_.

“Hey Ann, Have you ever seen a drive-in theater here in Japan? Locally, maybe?” He paused, at a loss for anything else to say. “Yeah okay good night.” Once again, the click traveled across the silent room.

Would Morgana even like seeing a movie? How far behind was he, cinematically speaking? Ryuji knew he'd been trapped in the metaverse for a while, but how long was that exactly?

Ryuji wondered if Morgana had been around when _Cars 2_ came out. Would he have liked it?

A sudden thought struck him, and his hand flew back to his phone, this time to call Akira.

“This is Akira’s phone. Leave a message.” _Beep_.

“Does Morgana have any extra features in car form? Like, plane wings or a gun or flamethrower? That would be so fuckin’ sick. Anyways, talk to you tomorrow. Bye.” He was getting flustered just thinking about it. Morgana with a hood-mounted gun? With wings? Maybe he would ask Morgana next time he saw him. That wouldn't be suspicious, would it? He couldn't see why it would be.

He called Ann again. “Do you think it would be weird to ask Morgana about cool car spy equipment? Like if he has any?” He glanced over at the clock. “Oh my god it's nearly three, I gotta go.”

This time, the click from his phone was drowned out by the violent rustling of covers as Ryuji tossed himself around.

 _Stop thinking about it_ , he told himself. _It's so, so late_. He still had to study for that test. Well, he had to study _more_. He'd studied with Akira the night before, but Ryuji still couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Would Morgana know anything about it?

_A study date; that would be nice. He would sit in the passenger’s seat, books set up against Morgana’s dashboard. Morgana would help him with the geometry he couldn't figure out, and maybe (like what always happened in the movies), after they'd given up on studying, he could -_

NO! He needed sleep, not whatever this hopeless pining was. It was 2:56. If he went to sleep immediately, he could still get three or four hours of rest.

Two minutes passed, and he called Ann again. Not to leave a message or anything. Just to keep his mind off actual thoughts. Call, hang up. Call, hang up. Call, hang up, rinse, wash, repeat. By the time 3:05 came around, his eyelids were finally starting to droop, his mind finally quieting. At 3:09, he could hardly hold his phone up anymore.

Finally, at 3:12 in the morning, Ryuji closed his eyes and couldn't open them again. His phone was laid precariously on his face, one last call to Ann still going out before that, too, went dark.

Finally, the room was entirely still. No more tossing, no more turning, no more doomed calls out to sleeping friends. Just Ryuji, finally asleep, dreaming of cats and cars with wings.

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't actually edit this and also i don't actually know a damn thing about p5 or the persona series in general ¯\\_(:0)_/¯


End file.
